The FReeper Foxhole Studies The Lewis Gun - April 2nd, 2004

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[snippy_about_it]

Belgian Rattlesnake



The Germans weren't slow to note the implications of the light, portable machine gun. They bitterly dubbed the Lewis the "Belgian Rattlesnake" because of their enemy's habit of ambushing raiding parties with a sudden, furious hail of copper-jacketed venom. The highly practical Germans were quick to exploit every Lewis they could capture and included its care and feeding as an integral part of instruction of all new machine gunners.



Homecoming

American soldiers had first used .303 British caliber Lewis guns on the Mexican border in 1916. Then, bowing to public pressure built upon more than two years of combat success in Europe, Colonel Lewis' own army finally adopted the .30-'06 caliber Lewis Machine Gun Model 1917, manufactured by Savage Arms Co. of Utica, New York.

The Declining Years

Although the best of its kind until John Browning's soon-to-be-legendary "BAR" became available to American troops in 1917 and 1918, the Lewis was expensive to manufacture, heavy, somewhat awkward, and unnecessarily complicated. While production ceased at the end of World War I, enormous numbers of existing Lewis guns continued to serve.

They were still first-line weapons with many U.S. Navy, Marine Corps and Army units in the early years of World War II. The British Army adopted the superlative Bren in the mid-1930s, but many Lewis guns remained in secondary roles and with reserve troops until 1945.



Ironically, many British and American Lewis guns were in ground, sea, and air combat during World War II with Japanese models built under license after 1920.

Interestingly, the Germans in World War II revived the Lewis gun's unique bolt and gas piston/camming device as the heart of Rheinmetall's FG 42 paratroop machine rifle.

This adaptation traveled back to America in time for the Vietnam War in the form of the M60 machine gun -- which has only recently been rendered obsolete by the M240.



Anyone who has fired more than a round or two from a full-powered military bolt action rifle knows that recoil is a significant factor, but this is of little concern with the Lewis gun, weighing more than three times that of the British SMLE infantry rifle and aided by a ground-grabbing bipod.

A Distinctive Profile

With its stovepipe-like shape, the Lewis gun's prominent barrel shroud is particularly noteworthy. Colonel Lewis put a tapered extension at the muzzle end so that blast overpressure will cause a vacuum and draw cooling air from the receiver end through the shroud as the gun is being fired.

One of the most distinctive aspects of the Lewis is its top-mounted 47-round pan magazine. With no springs to break or become weak with use, and no bothersome belt to drag along, the Lewis magazine offers significant advantages over competing designs.



Located handily on top of the receiver, it doesn't scrape the ground nor does it put the weapon off balance by poking out one side or another. Its low profile doesn't interfere with the sights and it doesn't stick up like a lethal position-marker above the gunner's head.

In short, the Lewis magazine might seem to be nearly ideal except for the fact that it is completely open underneath, providing an entryway for grit and moisture.



About the author

Robert Bruce, a former infantryman, tank crewman, and military intelligence analyst, is the author of Machine Guns Of World War I, published in 1997 by Windrow & Greene/The Crowood Press. An internationally published photojournalist, archivist, and lecturer, Bruce has been shooting and evaluating the world's infantry weapons for nearly three decades. The author would like to thank Mike Knapp. Steve Altemus and the Great War Association of Alexandria, Va., for their help with the photography for this article.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS
Lewis Machine Gun
Manufacturer: Birmingham Small Arms Company,England
Caliber: .303 British
Operating System: Gas, open bolt, full-auto only
Cooling: Air, aluminum radiator-finned barrel
Magazine: Rotating pan, 47- and 97-round capacity
Length: 50.5"
Barrel: 26.04", 4 grooves, left twist
Loaded Weight: 32.75 lbs.
Sights: Blade front and aperture rear, adjustable for elevation in 100 yard increments from 400 to 2,100 yards
Rate of fire: 500 to 600 rpm
Muzzle velocity: 2,450 fps


Marines training with Lewis machine gun at Quantico during World War I.

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Today's Educational Sources and suggestions for further reading:

www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m0BQY/3_46/59281217/p1/article.jhtml

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[GATOR NAVY]

Hey, look at me-I'm the first one here!

[Aeronaut]

Good morning Snippy.

A (Herring-Burgess) 1pOB pusher (1910)

[Iris7]

Good morning, Snippy.

I have a soft spot for the Lewis Gun. It was a very effective weapon in it's day. Still is, although very rare and with almost no parts available.

The articles "six hundred yard" effective range for a .303 Lewis is too short. I have source material where they were used for direct fire at more than one thousand yards during the March 1918 German offensive. A spotter with good binoculars was necessary to call the shots and point out targets.

I have looked very closely at one being disassembled and in parts. Truly a remarkably complicated device, with many tiny parts. Vital parts can be hidden under a thimble. The magazine drive is very complex.

The barrel shroud and aluminum radiator - heat sink (way cool for sure) was found after the war to have no effect on barrel life. It did not work at all. The aluminum expanded more quickly than the steel barrel as the two heated, separating the aluminum heat sink from the barrel.

The Bren Gun, in my very non-humble opinion, is still a fine weapon to this day. The operating connecting rods coming back from the gas piston to the bolt make it clear that the designer could see what was happening.

Putting Bren guns into production today would be foolish militarily because production technique is so different today than in the 1930s, but a weapon of similar downrange performance with a modern cartridge, some borrowing from the MG-42, and, maybe, some aspects of the Japanese Type 99 light machine gun - could be very useful. I don't think anyone is very happy with the 5.56 x 45 mm M-16 cartridge at ranges over 600 yards, and in places like Afganistan you have to be able to shoot from one ridge line at targets on the next ridge line, and a one mile effective range is very useful indeed.

[E.G.C.]

Good morning, Snippy and everyone at the Foxhole.

[Long Cut]

BUMP for an old classic machine gun.

Any of you guys ever see the movie March or Die, starring Terence Hill? In the ending, Hill uses a Lewis gun to hold off and kill hundreds of Arabs attacking his Foreign Legion outpost.

The Lewis also makes an appearance in the hands of actor Oded Fehr in the 1999 movie, The Mummy, where it holds off an army of nasty rotting corpses.

[Long Cut]

Actually, the Brits still use newer Bren guns chambered in 7.62mm NATO (.308). I believe it is used by the SAS and other selected units.

[The Mayor]

The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. --John 10:10

God's truth is the best protection against Satan's lies.

[archy]

BUMP for an old classic machine gun.
Any of you guys ever see the movie March or Die, starring Terence Hill? In the ending, Hill uses a Lewis gun to hold off and kill hundreds of Arabs attacking his Foreign Legion outpost.

The Lewis also makes an appearance in the hands of actor Oded Fehr in the 1999 movie, The Mummy, where it holds off an army of nasty rotting corpses.

Don't forget the Lee Marvin- Jack Palance- Burt Lanchester film The Professionals, with Marvin playing the part of an army machinegun instructor and soldier for hire with a fondness for the Lewis, which stole a few scenes.

And too, Gary Cooper's guerrillo patrol in the screen adaptation of Hemingway's For whom the Bell Tolls had a Lewis with them. And one real-world owner and user was Thomas Edward Lawrence, AKA *Lawrence of Arabia* who found one quite useful during his time in the Arabian desert with Allenby's British army. But he found one personally useful, as after his death, one was found among his belongings in his cabin at Clouds Hill in Dorsett.

Matter of fact, one of the Imperial Storm Troopers in the Mos Eisley street scene outside the alien-infested cantina in Star Wars was carrying one. In all, that's quite a wide range of use for the old Belgian Rattler!

[SAMWolf]

Morning Gator Navy. You beat everyone!

[SAMWolf]

I always associate the Lewis Gun with Gary Cooper in "For Whom the Bell Tolls"

[SAMWolf]

Morning Aeronaut. Unusual for a bi-wing to have ailerons wasn't it?

[SAMWolf]

Morning Iris7. Thanks for your input on the Lewis gun.

[SAMWolf]

Morning E.G.C.

[Aeronaut]

Unusual for a bi-wing to have ailerons wasn't it?

Good morning Sam.

Not really. The Wrights "invented" and used wing warping, and they patented the process. Innovators soon had a work-around - ailerons.

[SAMWolf]

Morning Long Cut. The Lewis Gun is almost one of the "main characters" in "For Whom the Bell Tolls" at the end Gary Cooper uses it to hold off the German and Spanish Forces as the rest of his band escapes.

[SAMWolf]

Good Morning Mayor.